Resuscitative Thoracotomy : A Team Approach

Resuscitative Thoracotomy In 2013 X factor star Jelal Edmonds was stabbed outside a nightclub in Darlinghurst, Australia. He was rushed to St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney, where the Emergency Department team was there to assess him. He had an Echocardiogram which showed a rapidly enlarging pericardial tamponade and he began to arrest. The team was led by Dr Lee Blair and also present was heart surgery resident Dr Michael Byrom, who admitted that he had only ever seen a resuscitative thoracotomy on youtube. They successfully undertook this procedure, working together as a team of emergency physicians and surgeons, relieved the tamponade and sutured a ventricular lesion. The patient is fit and well today and living a busy career as the rapper ‘Lazy J’ and has visited the hospital to thank the team that saved his life. This whole episode was captured by a film crew and stimulated us to create a course to make sure that Emergency Physicians and Surgeons can work together in the biggest emergency that Emergency Departments see to make sure that more young people like Jelal are saved from life threatening penetrating chest trauma. This Book accompanies our E-learning and course to assist in the teaching of our Internationally recognised protocols